You're reading: Akhmetov flies high on Forbes’ richest list

In yet another display of his might and wealth, Ukraine’s richest billionaire made it into the world’s top 40 richest people, according to the Forbes latest World’s Billionaires ranking.

As the sole owner of leading Ukrainian financial and industrial holding System Capital Management, Rinat Akhmetov left far behind not only his fellow Ukrainian billionaires, but also the wealthiest people from more economically developed countries.

According to the rankings released on March 9, Akhmetov’s wealth increased three times compared to last year’s results, reaching $16 billion, or 39th place among the world’s richest, headed by telecoms mogul Carlos Slim Helu of Mexico, worth a whopping $74 billion.

Despite being far behind Slim, Akhmetov still has every reason to feel content about the latest Forbes’ results. Not only is he richer than the aggregate wealth of the other seven Ukrainian billionaires – Victor Pinchuk, Ihor Kolomoysky, Gennady Bogolubov, Kostyantyn Zhevago, Yuriy Kosiuk, Andriy Verevskiy and Oleg Bakhmatyuk – but he’s also one of the richest persons in Eastern Europe.

Alexander Paskhaver, the president of Kyiv-based Center for Economic Development, explains such concentration of wealth in Ukraine compared to its neighboring countries by the transparency of those economies that are open for Western capital that freely competes with local businesses.

The division of wealth in Ukraine, on the contrary, is like in third world countries still at the development stage, Paskhaver said, and very risky for foreign investors due to rampant corruption that creates a barrier for any outsiders and hampers economic development.

“Our billionaires who teamed up with the corrupt bureaucracy simply don’t want any competition”, says Paskhaver.

“That’s why our nation is so poor.” In Paskhaver’s view, while their western colleagues very often built businesses from scratch or brought innovations to the market, Ukraine’s billionaires “got rich out of privatizations and [then their wealth has] multiplied by the corruption.”

For the first time, Forbes ranked Akhmetov higher in wealth than notorious London-based Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich. The Chelsea football club owner’s wealth was estimated at $13.4 billion.

In a sign of his might, Akhmetov’s Donetsk-based Shakhtar soccer team – stacked with high cost players from abroad – has been performing exceptionally in recent years. Both Shakhtar and Chelsea could face each other in the upcoming Champions League quarterfinals.

For Andrey Bespyatov, head of research at Kyiv-based investment bank Dragon Capital, the situation in Ukraine is somewhat similar to Mexico, where the world’s richest person Carlos Slim Helu comes from.

The concentration of wealth in Ukraine could even increase, unless the country’s business climate becomes friendlier for foreign business.

“Not all the state assets have been privatized and the chances that they will fall into the hands of the same group of people are obvious, given that there remains limited access for foreign investors,” says Bespyatov.

While such a scenario could be bad for Ukraine’s 46 million ordinary citizens, it could very well help Akhmetov and his fellow oligarchs rise up higher in next year’s billionaire ranking by Forbes.

Kyiv Post staff writer Vlad Lavrov can be reached at [email protected].

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